What Was the Difference Between the Septuagint and the Vulgate?

Thank you for your question! There’s a bit of confusion here about the terms and the historical development of the Christian Bible. Let me clarify: **The Septuagint** is not a "Christian Bible," but rather the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (what Christians call the Old Testament), produced between the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE. It contains approximately 46 books (the exact number varies due to the way books are divided and combined). - **Old Testament (Septuagint):** Commonly includes 46 books. - **New Testament:** The Christian New Testament (27 books) was gradually composed in the 1st century CE and was not part of the Septuagint. **Total books in the Catholic Bible:** 46 (OT, per Septuagint tradition) + 27 (NT) = **73 books.** **The 66 books** you mention come from the **Protestant tradition.** Protestants, during the Reformation (16th century), chose to exclude certain books from the Old Testament that are found in the Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Bible. This resulted in: - **Protestant Old Testament:** 39 books - **New Testament:** 27 books - **Total:** **66 books** **To summarize:** - **The earliest Christian Bibles** (those used by early Christians and later compiled by the Catholic Church) were based on the Septuagint and included **73 books** (46 OT, 27 NT). - **The "66 books" Bible** is a later Protestant development. **So, if I (or anyone) said "the first Christian Bible had 66 books," that would be incorrect**—the earliest complete Christian Bibles included more books, in alignment with the Septuagint tradition. The 66-book canon is a product of the Reformation, many centuries later. If you have further questions about Bible history or the canonization process, please let me know!

I apologize if there was any confusion. The discrepancy is due to the differences in biblical canons among various Christian traditions. The Septuagint, a Greek version of the Jewish Scriptures, actually contained a more extensive list of books than we would find in a typical Protestant Old Testament today. The Septuagint does indeed include 46 books that the Catholic church eventually defined as the canon of their Old Testament. Coupled with the 27 books in the New Testament, this does total 73 books. However, later on, the Protestant Reformation led by Martin Luther in the 16th century rejected some of these books, considering only 39 Old Testament books and 27 New Testament books as canonical, leading to a total of 66 books in most Protestant Bibles today. So, the number of books in the "first Christian Bible" could be either 73 or 66, depending on whether one is referring to the early Christian usage (which would become the Catholic Canon), or the later Protestant Canon. I hope this clarifies the confusion.